EXCLUSIVE: Football Manager Handheld 2013 coming before Christmas, but not for Surface or WP8

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There's great news for iPhone, iPad and Android phone or tablet-owning fans of Football Manager: a new version of Football Manager Handheld will hit app stores "before Christmas". Not so great news for new Microsoft Surface or Windows Phone owners though, they will miss out this year at least. BlackBerry users too.

Sports Interactive is close to releasing the new version of the hugely successful footy management game on iTunes and Google Play, but has no plans to develop it for other platforms. Pocket-lint spoke to studio director Miles Jacobson who told us exclusively that the Windows tablet and smartphone platform is too fragmented - by Microsoft's design, it seems.

"The problem with Windows 8, for me, is that a decision seems to have been made somewhere that tablets and PCs are of one family, and that phones are a different family. Whereas, we believe that tablets and phones are one family," said Jacobson.

"So, until those boundaries are clearer and until the public decides what they want Windows RT to be – or whether they want it to be anything at all – then we’re not going to be looking at Windows 8 or Windows RT."